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Liblady495

The past several months have been a very interesting time form me. Health issues, and a pesky cataract have slowed me down, making it hard to make much progress. After having cataract surgery in June and another one scheduled in Aug, I am now able to more mobile, not having to depend on others to take me places. I have worked on indexing (about 26,000) most of them for the 1940 Census. I am also working on the Langston Family Tree. Anticipating a trip to the Buffalo, New York area in the fall to work on the Voss tree, particularly the Weisleader family.

Most of last year was spent digitalizing 34 years of Langston Newsletter. My cousin, Dedria and I have taken on the task of producing the current newsletter. Preparing to publish our first issue shortly.

During our last visit, I helped a friend find some information about a great grandfather of her husband. We were able to find where he was buried. She called, I helped her find the cemetery again. Several weeks later, the family traveled to Iowa to the cemetery. Their brick wall was where was his wife buried. Upon finding the cemetery and the headstone, the picture showed that the headstone had fallen off its base. I soon received another phone call. They had picked up the headstone, turned it over and there was the information about the mother. They were so excited. Currently I am trying to find a time to visit with family and help them continue with their family journey. The genealogy bug bite hard.

The Langston Family.

I have started work on the Langston Family. As I digitalized 34 years of Langston Family Newsletters, I put all of the names into my genealogy software. The names from the newsletter include family groups, stories, inquiries, birth, marriage and obituaries. Over 4000 names were included in the database. I am now trying to work my way through the names, finding last names, duplicates, and connecting families.

I put the tree on Ancestry, privately for now, to check for documentation. Now with this many names it is very easy to get distracted, so I am working my way through one name at a time alphabetically. I will work through all of the names except the Langstons. When I get to them, I will be 75% finished, as there are over 1000 Langstons.

One of the issues is how much information do you include about the families that married into the Langston family. I have currently worked my way through the A’s and B’s, ready to start with the C’s. Looking at the list I have worked with 363 names, occasionally adding information to some other names, but trying to stick to my plan of working through the alphabet.

I know this task will take some time, but hopefully I will have a family tree I feel I can go back and follow the family lines. I have started with Caleb Langston who had several sons, 3 of which migrated to Arkansas in the early 1800’s. I can trace my lineage back to 3 of Caleb’s sons.

I also need to start getting things organized for my trip to Buffalo and the questions I would like to have answered when I get there. The lastest issue of Family Tree Magazine has a city guide for genealogists.